


Running is Not a Team Sport

by JarvisUandDUMEtoo



Series: Short Rhodey Stories [1]
Category: Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Best Friends, College, Gen, Graduation, Growing Up, MIT Era, Metaphors, Rivalry, Running, Short, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-18
Updated: 2019-01-18
Packaged: 2019-10-12 10:07:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17465498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JarvisUandDUMEtoo/pseuds/JarvisUandDUMEtoo
Summary: James Rhodes always had to be the best. He always had to be the fastest, the smartest, the most prepared. No one was surprised when he was offered a scholarship to attend MIT in the fall.When the teacher passed out the grades from the first physics midterm, he announced the highest score. It was one point above Rhodey's. Unacceptable. That night he hacked into the teacher's computer and he found the name attached to the highest score. Anthony Stark. And thus the great race began.





	Running is Not a Team Sport

James Rhodes always had to be the best. He always had to be the fastest, the smartest, the most prepared. In elementary school he was always the top of his class. In middle school he skipped a grade. It went so well he skipped another. By time he was a senior in high school he schedule was entirely made up of honors courses, and after he graduated at the top of his class with a perfect 4.0, no one was surprised when he was offered a scholarship to attend MIT in the fall.

His mother pulled him aside after he got his acceptance letter. She told him how proud she was, and hugged him close. 

A few months later he moved to Boston and started his first year. Walking into his first class was intimidating. After years of effortlessly being the best in every class, he was suddenly surrounded by fierce competition. The cream of the crop went to MIT, and as he looked around the room, hundreds of eager faces all waiting to prove themselves stared back. He loved it. He threw himself into his courses, lost himself in studying, and worked his way to the top. Or almost to the top. When the teacher passed out the grades from the first physics midterm, he announced the highest score. It was one point above his own. Unacceptable. That night he hacked into the teacher's computer, the code flowing as easy as he breathed, until he found the name attached to the highest score. Anthony Stark. And thus the great race began. 

The next day he found the kid after class. He was small with messy hair and large tired eyes. James almost felt bad threatening to academically kick his ass. At least, until the kid (and he was a kid, 15 if he was a day, not that he could talk himself at 17) gave him a vicious smile and said, “You can try.” 

The next midterm the teacher announced the highest score, and James shot a smug look over to Tony, who glowered back. The race was well and truly on, and he had taken the lead in the second lap. 

As the year went on, he and Tony competed in everything. At first they just went head to head in their shared physics class. Then they realized they had the same calculus teacher, on different days, and they started to try to top each other in that class too. One night they ran into each other at a party, and despite the both of them being horribly underage a game of beer pong quickly turned into shots and since neither of them would ever give in they woke up the next morning in Anthony's room hungover to hell and back, not a clue how they got there. They declared a temporary truce and agreed that they would both skip class that day. Instead they competed in video games, mashing buttons and trying to push each other over until Anthony became Tones and James became Rhodey. After that they were inseparable, the two youngest in every class, correcting the teachers and sassing each other, staying up until two in the morning running on coffee and desperation because they were both trying to graduate in just two years, Tony trying to get degrees in physics and engineering, Rhodey going for aerospace. 

Tony made fun of him for that sometimes. “You just want to be able to say you're a rocket scientist Rhodey, admit it, it's just for the bragging rights.” 

And that was a part of it. To be able to say that he got a degree in rocket science from MIT was pretty cool, alright? But it was more than that. He loved the grace of the space ships, slicing through the air at impossible speeds, pushing the boundaries of the unknown…...at this point Tony would usually start in on the Star Trek intro, yelling “seeking out new life and civilizations, going where no man has gone before…..” until Rhodey hit him with a pillow to shut him up. He was a big fan of the space race too, the thrill of pure breakneck scientific progress. But he never told anyone the main reason, because he didn't usually understand it himself. It was just when he he took a break from another all nighter with Tony, one of a week of all nighters and homework and classes and stress, and wandered outside to look at the stars, it finally felt like he could breathe. Most of the time his chest felt tight as he pushed himself to his limits, in his metaphoric race his heartbeat always pounded loudly in his ears as he panted for air, the slightest taste of blood in the back of his throat and his feet raced onward to bigger and better things. He couldn't stumble, couldn't slow, he'd die before he stopped. He was running from all the people who said he wasn't good enough, because he was young or black or barely edging into middle class, and running for all the people who thought he was more than enough, his sister who looked up to him and thought he was the smartest guy in the world and called him up every week to ask about her math homework, his dad who bragged about him to his all his friends and punched his shoulder and said “That's my boy!”, and his mom who held him close and whispered how proud she was as she stroked his hair. 

He loved to run his personal race, and knew it needed to be run. But sometimes everyone's hopes and expectations wore on him, and after he got a bad score on a test or missed an assignment or even had been running for so long he forgot what it was like to just stop, look around and breathe, he would go outside, and look at the stars. Because to the stars, he was nothing. They didn't care if he stumbled or fell. Whether he aced a test or squeezed by with a C-. They just were, spinning on eternal. And he hoped that one day he could reach them, his own personal finish line, and finally find the peace embodied in the heavens. 

He graduated MIT with Tony, Tony beating him to Suma Cum Laude by barely a sliver. But he couldn't stay pissed for long, as his family showered him with praise and hugs, his mother shoving flowers into his hands as he blushed furiously and his Dad took picture after picture. He found Tony in the crowd and introduced him to his family, who took to him like a duck to water. His mother insisted that they all go out to eat together, that they were both far too thin, you kids never eat right up at school. Rhodey asked where Tony’s family was, invited them along. Tony said they were running late, and seeing the pinched look on his friend's face, he didn't push. Though he had raced besides Tony for the past two years, each of them trying to pass the other, he still hadn't figured out who exactly Tony was running for or what he was running towards. 

He joined the Air Force, a split second decision, a sudden panic as his clear finish line of graduation was behind him and the road stretched empty ahead, yet as his dad put a hand on his shoulder and told him how proud his uncle was that he was following in his footsteps, he knew he made the right choice. He kept in touch with Tony, both still running but now on different paths. He looked forward to every intersection, for when he and his best friend could get together and push each other to be the best they could be. 

They understood each other better than anyone else, partially because it took a degree in rocket science to understand what they were saying when they really got going, and partially because they both knew what it felt like to claw your way to the top of a pack of people much older. When Rhodey watched Tony sigh at a problem or redo a project for the fifth time since it wasn't quite perfect, he knew Tony was the only other person to feel the race so acutely, and to run it so diligently. 

A few short years later Tony's parents died in a car crash. Rhodey took leave and came to the funeral. Tony wore sunglasses on the overcast day, and leaned on a tall bald man who was whispering reassurances as they lowered two caskets. Tony did not speak at the wake. 

Rhodey stayed with him for a few days. He was worried for his friend, who had remained uncharacteristically silent and motionless, a sharp contrast to his normal manic energy. He was worried that Tony was going to give up, to say screw the race and just stop. Spend the rest of his life cooped up in his house, not talking to anyone but his robots. He was rich enough to do it. His leave ended. He left his friend. And he hoped. 

A few months later Tony was in the papers for sleeping with a congressman's daughter. Next week he broke the bank at Vegas. The week after that he hosted a party that set a nationwide record for pure size and extravagance. Rhodey didn't see Tony for over a year while simultaneously seeing him every week as he caught and held the media's eye. 

Some people loved him. Most people hated him. But he was impossible to ignore, leading the pack in endless soulless entertainments. From a distance Rhodey watched as Tony ran farther and faster than he ever had before, carelessly racking up patents and awards, sleeping with starlets and schmoozing with senators. With new perspective Rhodey realized that his friend had never been running for anyone or to anywhere, but away from everything, and the lines blurred now that nothing remained but ghosts of expectations. He didn't have a goal, didn't have a finish line, he ran himself into the ground every day and drank himself to sleep every night and despite being named the life of the party by several magazines Rhodey wasn't sure Tony was even living, so much as endlessly running in circles, running faster and faster as he wore himself away to nothing for the entertainment of a jeering crowd. When the Stark Industries liaison position opened up, Rhodey sprang on it. They fell back into their friendship, through the competitive aspect was gone. The kid who used to hang on every compliment and show off every perfect score now didn't bother to show up to receive awards. With no finish line there was no progress. Things happened or they didn't and Tony didn't care either way. Rhodey won their race, but it was a hollow victory. He missed being challenged and challenging in return, pushing each other to do the impossible. After having someone by his side it felt empty to run alone. 

Then Afghanistan happened. Almost everyone in the convoy was killed. Tony was taken. And Rhodey started looking. Just like after his friends parents had died, there was nothing he could do but have faith that Tony would find a way to keep running. 

Three months later he found Tony. Just like the first time he met him, he had messy hair and large tired eyes. Rhodey ran to him and promised himself that from now on, wherever their paths took them, they'd run together. He pulled Tony into a hug. “Next time, you ride with me.” Tony smiled, and in his eyes Rhodey read pain and relief and love, but most importantly he saw the fire that had been missing for so long. Despite the horrors of the last three months, Tony was ready to run. And wherever he went, Rhodey would be there beside him.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed the story! This is the second story I've ever posted so please let me know if I did anything wrong with formatting or tags.


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